News

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has named Chester S. Spatt, the Pamela R. and Kenneth B. Dunn Professor of Finance at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, as a member of its newly created Equity Market Structure Advisory Committee. Spatt joins an inaugural advisory body comprising distinguished professionals from the financial services industry, academia and public interest groups, which was announced by the SEC in a press statement.

The committee will focus on the structure and operations of U.S. equity markets and act as a formal channel through which advice and recommendations will be provided to the SEC relating to issues that include a review of the SEC’s Regulation NMS (National Market System), the role of exchanges in the current market structure and the presence and effect of conflicts in the routing and execution of equity orders.

“The inherent complexity of today’s equity markets and the importance of competition among various types of trading venues, trading costs and the speed of trading suggests benefit from a review of our overall equity market structure and policy,” Spatt said. “I am honored to be part of a working group that is aimed toward these issues.”

Stephen Luparello, director of the SEC Division of Trading and Markets, will be the designated federal officer on the committee, which is expected to hold public meetings approximately four times a year. The committee’s first meeting will be held after notice of the committee’s establishment is published in the Federal Register. The committee has a two-year term, which can be renewed by the Commission.

Spatt served as chief economist and director of the SEC’ s Office of Economic Analysis from 2004 to 2007 and is currently a member of the Model Validation Council, which was established in 2012 by the Federal Reserve to provide expert and independent advice on its process to rigorously assess the models it uses in stress tests of banking institutions. In 2014, he was selected as a member to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR) Advisory Committee, which addresses policy issues relating to financial stability. Spatt is also a current member of the Systematic Risk Council (SRC), a private sector, non-partisan body of former government officials and financial and legal experts committed to addressing regulatory and structural issues relating to systemic risk in the United States, as well as a member of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee, which critiques and evaluates governmental financial regulatory policies.

A highly-respected scholar and researcher in financial economics and financial markets, professor Spatt has focused much of his attention and research in recent years on economic issues related to securities regulation, financial markets, and asset allocation and taxes.